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AFOAF is a fairly new grower, with several cube strains under her belt. Getting nice, healthy cakes - using inner reservoir (this tek helped her a lot), growing on brf & verm first, and now on rye flour & verm. She's worked herself up to fourth flushes (from cakes) of Pes H & Puerto Rican. She also has 2 finch seed jars colonizing nicely, with no clue what she will do when they are finished....the more she reads, the less she seems to know.

She started experimenting with casings, but has not had much yield so far. She's only used straight vermiculite to case, as she saw numerous posts referring to Hongus tek as being easy for beginners. Her first attempt succumbed to green mold - she was careless about sterility with that one. Her second attempt yielded 2 small, pitiful flushes (not the prettiest shrooms I've seen, for sure) and was then tossed to make room in her terrarium for healthy cakes. Her third attempt at casing is having problems, so it's time to figure out what she's doing wrong.

Each casing so far has given very few pins, even less mature mushies. Additionally, she has problems with the few mature mushies falling over before the veil breaks. Will this problem be corrected by adding other ingredients to the casing? I think I've read that oyster shell helps to support the shrooms, so she needs to find some and try that, maybe?

On her current casing, she noticed an area in the center that looked darker than the surrounding vermiculite, during first flush. Can't say it was really black, but definitely darker. At first she thought it was a wet spot, but the casing was sprayed evenly (only before & between flushes - if you can even call 3-4 shroomies a flush!) when no pins or shrooms were apparent. During the pitiful flushes, extra moisture was added via syringe with needle, carefully controlled, and only added to areas with NO visible growth. During third flush, a shroom grew directly out of the darker area, and it got yucky before it matured. She picked, sliced with a tint knife down the stem, and found the top half of the stem to be yucky inside, the bottom half looked healthy. The casing smells nice and shroomy when flushing, but less so when no shrooms are present. Doesn't smell like ass, just maybe a little suspect, when she compares to the aroma of a nice, healthy cake.

Casings have all been placed in the same terrariums she uses for cakes, with less spraying & water added, in an attempt to lower the humidity somewhat.

Now the questions:

Where can she puchase oyster shell?

Are there other causes of toppling adolescent shrooms?

Is the black spot described indicative of a particular mold? If so, any ideas to combat the splotch, if she gets another one in the future?

Do you see any glaring f-up's on her part, that she may be overlooking?

Any recommendation for her 2 little bird seed cakes - the easier the better - she likes to take baby steps when learning a new skill.

babyshroom,
oyster shell is just calcium carbonate. You can find this as a reptile supplement in most pet shops that carry reptiles. Or just buy vitamin pills with it. I got mine at a reptile show in bulk for cheap.

---------------------QuantumMeltdown

Total abstinence is so excellent a thing that it cannot be carried to too great an extent. In my passion for it I even carry it so far as to totally abstain from total abstinence itself.
-Mark Twain

"The time has come the walrus said, little oysters hide their heads, my Twain of thought is loosely bound I guess its time to Mark this down, Be good and you will be lonesome
Be lonesome and you will be free
Live a lie and you will live to regret it
That's what livin' is to me
That's what livin' is to me"
Jimmy Buffett